07/2025 - Ravaka and Sana farewell
We send a warm farewell to Ravaka F. Andriastsitohaina (from Toamasina University, Madagascar) and Sana Ullah (from Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry), who shared a brief but intense research experience with us in our laboratory.
Ravaka accomplished a three months research period in our group thanks to a TWASS-SISSA-Lincei Research Cooperation program. She collected microplastics from municipal urban waste compost, trying to quantify the amount of plastics and characterised them. Sana visited our laboratories to implement his PhD thanks to the support of COST Action CA22134. He conducted a pot experiment to investigate the mobility of Cu and Zn in soil and plants when exposed to different type of contamination.
Thank you for your hard work and nice time together!
08/2024 - International IHSS 2024
A week ago, Elisa and Carlo presented our research outputs at the international IHSS 2024 conference in Rimini, extending the knowledge on organic matter functions in wetland soils and plants.
Fruitful discussions with experienced researchers and friends accompained us in a pleasant and interesting week!
06/2024 - Data collection at Elettra synchrotron
The collaboration of our group with the Universities of Foggia and Verona has brought us here, to Elettra (Trieste). In the photo, our PhD student Daniel Moro and the researcher from the University of Foggia Beastrice Giannetta are busy preparing samples for the XRF line. We talk about root iron plaques, rice and climate change.
All with a good dose of humor that never hurts! Preliminary data is giving us "a lot", so let's continue with the next samples!
02/2024 - ACWS 2024
Great time at the Agricultural Chemistry Winter School (ACWS2024) in Perugia!
Our PhD student Daniel Moro and Post Doc Shuai Tong presented their work. We had a great social time and excellent scientific discussion with colleagues. Looking for the next edition!
08/2023 - Best poster award at the 2023 IHSS conference in Chile
Elisa Pellegrini recently participated to the conference organized by the International Humic Substances Society (IHSS) in Santiago, Chile. One of the two contributions presented on this occasion was awarded as best poster! Title of the work: "Electron donating capacity of humic acids in agricultural soils under different tillage and fertilization management". Elisa and the co-authors of the work demonstrated how a different organic fertilization and management of agricultural fields can influence the chemistry of the humified organic matter, and how this can favour (or not) the availability of iron.
A great achievement for organic matter research topic!
05/2023 - Happy birthday Maria and congratulations on your outstanding career!
A beautiful day accompanied us on the celebration day for Maria's birthday. Between lunch, pleasant conversations and laughs, Maria had to unwrap quite a few packages to figure out what she should take home!
Here, we also want to remember one of the many achievements in her career, i.e. to be one of the most influential researchers in the world! Congrats from all the group!
https://qui.uniud.it/ateneo/cresce-a-49-il-numero-di-scienziati-dellateneo-fra-i-piu-citati-al-mondo/ (in italian)
03/2023 - Daniel in the lab for his PhD
Our PhD student Daniel Moro is trying to build a new artificial system to simulate the root-soil interface in the laboratory, using artificial "roots". These allow us to study the radial oxygen loss from roots (toward the soil) and, at the same time, the radical uptake of nutrients (towards the root).
Daniel's goal is to simulate the oxidation of reduced iron (from FeII to FeIII) on the surface of these "roots", taking into account the real conditions in which the plant absorbs part of the FeII from the soil solution.